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Charles Baudelaire | The Irreparable | Can we suppress the old Remorse
Who bends our heart beneath his stroke,
Who feeds, as worms feed on the corse,
Or as the acorn on the oak?
Can we suppress the old Remorse?
Ah, in what philtre, wine, or spell,
May we drown this our ancient foe,
Destructive glutton, gorging well,
Patient as the ants, and slow?
What wine,... | This broken warrior who despairs
To have a cross above his grave--
This wretch the wolf already tears.
Can one illume a leaden sky,
Or tear apart the shadowy veil
Thicker than pitch, no star on high,
Not one funereal glimmer pale
Can one illume a leaden sky?
Hope lit the windows of the Inn,
But now that shining flame i... |
Robert Herrick | Another. (Charms.) | If ye fear to be affrighted
When ye are by chance benighted, | In your pocket for a trust
Carry nothing but a crust:
For that holy piece of bread
Charms the danger and the dread. |
Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) | Sonnet CCXI. | Qual paura ho, quando mi torna a mente.
MELANCHOLY RECOLLECTIONS AND PRESAGES.
O Laura! when my tortured mind
The sad remembrance bears
Of that ill-omen'd day,
When, victim to a thousand doubts and fears,
I left my soul behind,
That soul that could not from its partner stray;
In nightly visions to my longing eyes
Thy f... | But loosely in the wind,
Unbraided wave the ringlets of thy hair,
That late with studious care,
I saw with pearls and flowery garlands twined:
On thy wan lip, no cheerful smile appears;
Thy beauteous face a tender sadness wears;
Placid in pain thou seem'st, serene in grief,
As conscious of thy fate, and hopeless of rel... |
Alfred Edward Housman | Yonder see the morning blink: | Yonder see the morning blink:
The sun is up, and up must I,
To wash and dress and eat and drink | And look at things and talk and think
And work, and God knows why.
Oh often have I washed and dressed
And what's to show for all my pain?
Let me lie abed and rest:
Ten thousand times I've done my best
And all's to do again. |
Robert Herrick | Hell. | Hell is no other but a soundless pit, | Where no one beam of comfort peeps in it. |
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper | Mother's Treasures. | Two little children sit by my side,
I call them Lily and Daffodil;
I gaze on them with a mother's pride,
One is Edna, the other is Will.
Both have eyes of starry light,
And laughing lips o'er teeth of pearl.
I would not change for a diadem
My noble boy and darling girl.
To-night my heart o'erflows with joy;
I hold them... | I fain would hide them in my heart,
Safe from tarnish of moth and rust.
What should I ask for my dear boy?
The richest gifts of wealth or fame?
What for my girl? A loving heart
And a fair and a spotless name?
What for my boy? That he should stand
A pillar of strength to the state?
What for my girl? That she should be
T... |
George Gordon Byron | English Bards, And Scotch Reviewers; A Satire. | "I had rather be a kitten, and cry, mew!
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers."
- Shakespeare.
"Such shameless Bards we have; and yet 'tis true,
There are as mad, abandon'd Critics, too."
- Pope.
PREFACE [a]
All my friends, learned and unlearned, have urged me not to publish this Satire with my name. If I were t... | To soothe the mania of the amorous throng!
With thee our nursery damsels shed their tears,
Ere Miss as yet completes her infant years:
But in her teens thy whining powers are vain;
She quits poor BOWLES for LITTLE'S purer strain.
Now to soft themes thou scornest to confine
The lofty numbers of a harp like thine;
"Awake... |
Madison Julius Cawein | The Old Byway | Its rotting fence one scarcely sees
Through sumac and wild blackberries,
Thick elder and the bramble-rose,
Big ox-eyed daisies where the bees
Hang droning in repose.
The little lizards lie all day
Gray on its rocks of lichen-gray;
And, insect-Ariels of the sun, | The butterflies make bright its way,
Its path where chipmunks run.
A lyric there the redbird lifts,
While, twittering, the swallow drifts
'Neath wandering clouds of sleepy cream,
In which the wind makes azure rifts,
O'er dells where wood-doves dream.
The brown grasshoppers rasp and bound!
Mid weeds and briers that hedg... |
Thomas Moore | To Rosa. | A far conserva, e cumulo d'amanti.
"Past. Fid."
And are you then a thing of art,
Seducing all, and loving none;
And have I strove to gain a heart
Which every coxcomb thinks his own? | Tell me at once if this be true,
And I will calm my jealous breast;
Will learn to join the dangling crew,
And share your simpers with the rest.
But if your heart be not so free,--
Oh! if another share that heart,
Tell not the hateful tale to me,
But mingle mercy with your art.
I'd rather think you "false as hell,"
Than... |
Thomas Hardy | At Lulworth Cove A Century Back | Had I but lived a hundred years ago
I might have gone, as I have gone this year,
By Warmwell Cross on to a Cove I know,
And Time have placed his finger on me there:
"YOU SEE THAT MAN?" I might have looked, and said,
"O yes: I see him. One that boat has brought
Which dropped down Channel round Saint Alban's Head. | So commonplace a youth calls not my thought."
"YOU SEE THAT MAN?" "Why yes; I told you; yes:
Of an idling town-sort; thin; hair brown in hue;
And as the evening light scants less and less
He looks up at a star, as many do."
"YOU SEE THAT MAN?" "Nay, leave me!" then I plead,
"I have fifteen miles to vamp across the lea,... |
Algernon Charles Swinburne | Christmas Antiphones | I
IN CHURCH
Thou whose birth on earth
Angels sang to men,
While thy stars made mirth,
Saviour, at thy birth,
This day born again;
As this night was bright
With thy cradle-ray,
Very light of light,
Turn the wild world's night
To thy perfect day.
God whose feet made sweet
Those wild ways they trod,
From thy fragrant feet... | II
OUTSIDE CHURCH
We whose days and ways
All the night makes dark,
What day shall we praise
Of these weary days
That our life-drops mark?
We whose mind is blind,
Fed with hope of nought;
Wastes of worn mankind,
Without heart or mind,
Without meat or thought;
We with strife of life
Worn till all life cease,
Want, a whet... |
Oliver Herford | The Whole Duty of Kittens | When Human Folk at Table eat, | A Kitten must not mew for meat,
Or jump to grab it from the Dish,
(Unless it happens to be fish). |
William Butler Yeats | He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven | Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light, | The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. |
John Carr (Sir) | Verses On An Autumnal Leaf. | Think not, thou pride of Summer's softest strain!
Sweet dress of Nature, in her virgin bloom!
That thou hast flutter'd to the breeze in vain,
Or unlamented found thy native tomb.
The Muse, who sought thee in the whisp'ring shade,
When scarce one roving breeze was on the wing, | With tones of genuine grief beholds thee fade,
And asks thy quick return in earliest Spring.
I mark'd the victim of the wintry hour,
I heard the winds breathe sad a fun'ral sigh,
When the lone warbler, from his fav'rite bow'r,
Pour'd forth his pensive song to see thee die; -
When, in his little temple, colder grown,
H... |
Robert Herrick | Upon Dundrige. | Dundrige his issue hath; but is not styl'd, | For all his issue, father of one child. |
Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey) | Ebb-Tide. | Long reaches of wet grasses sway
Where ran the sea but yesterday,
And white-winged boats at sunset drew
To anchor in the crimsoning blue.
The boats lie on the grassy plain,
Nor tug nor fret at anchor chain;
Their errand done, their impulse spent,
Chained by an alien element,
With sails unset they idly lie,
Though morni... | About their keels, within the net
Of tough grass fibres green and wet,
A myriad thirsty creatures, pent
In sorrowful imprisonment,
Await the beat, distinct and sweet,
Of the white waves' returning feet.
My soul their vigil joins, and shares
A nobler discontent than theirs;
Athirst like them, I patiently
Sit listening b... |
Abram Joseph Ryan | C.S.A. | Do we weep for the heroes who died for us,
Who living were true and tried for us,
And dying sleep side by side for us;
The Martyr-band
That hallowed our land
With the blood they shed in a tide for us?
Ah! fearless on many a day for us
They stood in front of the fray for us,
And held the foeman at bay for us;
And tears ... | How many a glorious name for us,
How many a story of fame for us
They left: Would it not be a blame for us
If their memories part
From our land and heart,
And a wrong to them, and shame for us?
No, no, no, they were brave for us,
And bright were the lives they gave for us;
The land they struggled to save for us
Will no... |
Alfred Joyce Kilmer (Joyce) | The Singing Girl | (For the Rev. Edward F. Garesche, S. J.)
There was a little maiden
In blue and silver drest,
She sang to God in Heaven
And God within her breast. | It flooded me with pleasure,
It pierced me like a sword,
When this young maiden sang: "My soul
Doth magnify the Lord."
The stars sing all together
And hear the angels sing,
But they said they had never heard
So beautiful a thing.
Saint Mary and Saint Joseph,
And Saint Elizabeth,
Pray for us poets now
And at the hour... |
Emma Lazarus | Meditations. (Translations From The Hebrew Poets Of Medaeval Spain.) | Forget thine anguish,
Vexed heart, again.
Why shouldst thou languish,
With earthly pain?
The husk shall slumber,
Bedded in clay
Silent and sombre,
Oblivion's prey!
But, Spirit immortal,
Thou at Death's portal,
Tremblest with fear.
If he caress thee,
Curse thee or bless thee,
Thou must draw near,
From him the worth of t... | Of all thou didst have,
Follows naught to the grave.
Thou fliest thy nest,
Swift as a bird to thy place of rest.
What avail grief and fasting,
Where nothing is lasting?
Pomp, domination,
Become tribulation.
In a health-giving draught,
A death-dealing shaft.
Wealth - an illusion,
Power - a lie,
Over all, dissolution
Cre... |
Michael Fairless | A German Christmas Eve (Prose) | A German Christmas Eve
It was intensely cold; Father Rhine was frozen over, so he may speak for it; and for days we had lived to the merry jangle and clang of innumerable sleigh bells, in a white and frost-bound world. As I passed through the streets, crowded with stolidly admiring peasants from the villages round, I c... | A Sister passed with a fat, rosy little girl in either hand; they were chattering merrily of the gift they were to buy for the dear Christkind, the gift which Sister said He would send some ragged child to receive for Him. They came back to the poor booth close to where I was standing. It was piled with warm garments; ... |
Arthur Hugh Clough | Two Moods | Ah, blame him not because he's gay!
That he should smile, and jest, and play
But shows how lightly he can bear,
How well forget that load which, where
Thought is, is with it, and howe'er
Dissembled, or indeed forgot,
Still is a load, and ceases not.
This aged earth that each new spring
Comes forth so young, so ravishin... | Which on the untiring orbit's course
Around the sun, amidst the spheres
Still bears her thro' the eternal years.
Ah, blame the flowers and fruits of May,
And then blame him because he's gay.
Ah, blame him not, for not being gay,
Because an hundred times a day
He doth not currently repay
Sweet words with ready words as ... |
Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton) | Over The Range | Little bush maiden, wondering-eyed,
Playing alone in the creek-bed dry,
In the small green flat on every side
Walled in by the Moonbi ranges high;
Tell me the tale of your lonely life
'Mid the great grey forests that know no change.
"I never have left my home," she said,
"I have never been over the Moonbi Range.
"Fathe... | "Where are your father and mother?" I said.
She puzzled awhile with thoughtful face,
Then a light came into the shy brown face,
And she smiled, for she thought the question strange
On a thing so certain, "When people die
They go to the country over the range."
"And what is this country like, my lass?"
"There are blosso... |
John Milton | Psal. LXXXIV. | How lovely are thy dwellings fair!
O Lord of Hoasts, how dear
The pleasant Tabernacles are!
Where thou do'st dwell so near.
My Soul doth long and almost die
Thy Courts O Lord to see,
My heart and flesh aloud do crie,
O living God, for thee.
There ev'n the Sparrow freed from wrong
Hath found a house of rest,
The Swallow... | Happy, who in thy house reside
Where thee they ever praise,
Happy, whose strength in thee doth bide,
And in their hearts thy waies.
They pass through Baca's thirstie Vale,
That dry and barren ground
As through a fruitfull watry Dale
Where Springs and Showrs abound.
They journey on from strength to strength
With joy and... |
William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham) | His Mercy Endureth For Ever | Our feet have wandered, wandered far and wide,--
His mercy endureth for ever!
From that strait path in which the Master died,--
His mercy endureth for ever!
Low have we fallen from our high estate,
Long have we lingered, lingered long and late;
But the tenderness of God
Is from age to age the same,
And His Mercy endure... | There is no sin His Love can not forgive;--
His mercy endureth for ever!
No soul so stained His Love will not receive;
His mercy endureth for ever!
No load of sorrow but His touch can move,
No hedge of thorns that can withstand His Love;
For the tenderness of God
Is from age to age the same,
And His Mercy endureth for ... |
William Blake | Piping Down The Valleys Wild | Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:
'Pipe a song about a lamb!'
So I piped with merry cheer. | 'Piper, pipe that song again.'
So I piped: he wept to hear.
'Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;
Sing thy songs of happy cheer.'
So I sung the same again,
While he wept with joy to hear.
'Piper, sit thee down and write
In a book, that all may read.'
So he vanished from my sight,
And I plucked a hollow reed,
And I made a rur... |
George Augustus Baker, Jr. | A Piece Of Advice. | So you're going to give up flirtation, my dear,
And lead a life sober and quiet?
There, there, I don't doubt the intention's sincere.
But wait till occasion shall try it.
Is Ramsay engaged?
Now, don't look enraged!
You like him, I know don't deny it!
What! Give up flirtation? Change dimples for frowns
Why, Nell, what'... | Indeed! so "you feel for the woes of my sex!"
"The legions of hearts you've been breaking
Your conscience affright, and your reckoning perplex,
Whene'er an account you've been taking!"
"I'd scarcely believe
How deeply you grieve
At the mischief your eyes have been making!"
Now, Nellie! Flirtation's the leaven of life;
... |
Thomas Moore | Imitation Of The Inferno Of Dante. | "Cosi quel fiato gli spiriti mali
Di qu', di l', di giu, di su gli mena."
Inferno, canto 5.
I turned my steps and lo! a shadowy throng
Of ghosts came fluttering towards me--blown along,
Like cockchafers in high autumnal storms,
By many a fitful gust that thro' their forms
Whistled, as on they came, with wheezy puff,
An... | "Allow me to present Miss X. Y. Z.,[3]
"One of our lettered nymphs--excuse the pun--
"Who gained a name on earth by--having none;
"And whose initials would immortal be,
"Had she but learned those plain ones, A. B. C.
"Yon smirking ghost, like mummy dry and neat,
"Wrapt in his own dead rhymes--fit winding-sheet--
"Still... |
Edgar Lee Masters | Chase Henry | In life I was the town drunkard;
When I died the priest denied me burial
In holy ground. | The which redounded to my good fortune.
For the Protestants bought this lot,
And buried my body here,
Close to the grave of the banker Nicholas,
And of his wife Priscilla.
Take note, ye prudent and pious souls,
Of the cross - currents in life
Which bring honor to the dead, who lived in shame |
Sara Teasdale | The Wind In The Hemlock | Steely stars and moon of brass,
How mockingly you watch me pass!
You know as well as I how soon
I shall be blind to stars and moon,
Deaf to the wind in the hemlock tree,
Dumb when the brown earth weighs on me.
With envious dark rage I bear,
Stars, your cold complacent stare;
Heart-broken in my hate look up,
Moon, at yo... | Emptied, to be refilled again.
What has man done that only he
Is slave to death, so brutally
Beaten back into the earth
Impatient for him since his birth?
Oh let me shut my eyes, close out
The sight of stars and earth and be
Sheltered a minute by this tree.
Hemlock, through your fragrant boughs
There moves no anger and... |
John Masefield | Sea Change | "Goneys an' gullies an' all o' the birds o' the sea
They ain't no birds, not really", said Billy the Dane.
"Not mollies, nor gullies, nor goneys at all", said he,
"But simply the sperrits of mariners livin' again.
"Them birds goin' fishin' is nothin' but the souls o' the drowned, | Souls o' the drowned, an' the kicked as are never no more
An' that there haughty old albatross cruisin' around,
Belike he's Admiral Nelson or Admiral Noah.
"An' merry's the life they are living. They settle and dip,
They fishes, they never stands watches, they waggle their wings;
When a ship comes by, they fly to look ... |
Jonathan Swift | On Carthy's Publishing Several Lampoons, Under The Names Of Infamous Poetasters (Epigram Against Carthy) | So witches bent on bad pursuits, | Assume the shapes of filthy brutes. |
William Cullen Bryant | The Living Lost. | Matron! the children of whose love,
Each to his grave, in youth hath passed,
And now the mould is heaped above
The dearest and the last!
Bride! who dost wear the widow's veil
Before the wedding flowers are pale!
Ye deem the human heart endures
No deeper, bitterer grief than yours.
Yet there are pangs of keener wo,
Of w... | Nor to the world's cold pity show
The tears that scald the cheek,
Wrung from their eyelids by the shame
And guilt of those they shrink to name,
Whom once they loved with cheerful will,
And love, though fallen and branded, still.
Weep, ye who sorrow for the dead,
Thus breaking hearts their pain relieve;
And reverenced a... |
Algernon Charles Swinburne | A Last Look - Sonnets | Sick of self-love, Malvolio, like an owl
That hoots the sun rerisen where starlight sank,
With German garters crossed athwart thy frank
Stout Scottish legs, men watched thee snarl and scowl, | And boys responsive with reverberate howl
Shrilled, hearing how to thee the springtime stank
And as thine own soul all the world smelt rank
And as thine own thoughts Liberty seemed foul.
Now, for all ill thoughts nursed and ill words given
Not all condemned, not utterly forgiven,
Son of the storm and darkness, pass in ... |
George MacDonald | Oh That A Wind | Oh that a wind would call
From the depths of the leafless wood!
Oh that a voice would fall
On the ear of my solitude!
Far away is the sea,
With its sound and its spirit tone;
Over it white clouds flee;
But I am alone, alone.
Straight and steady and tall
The trees stand on their feet; | Fast by the old stone wall
The moss grows green and sweet;
But my heart is full of fears,
For the sun shines far away;
And they look in my face through tears,
And the light of a dying day.
My heart was glad last night
As I pressed it with my palm;
Its throb was airy and light
As it sang some spirit psalm;
But it died a... |
W. M. MacKeracher | On Finding A Copy Of Burns's Poems In The House Of An Ontario Farmer. | Large Book, with heavy covers worn and old,
Bearing clear proof of usage and of years,
Thine edges yellow with their faded gold,
Thy leaves with fingers stained - perchance with tears;
How oft thy venerable page has felt
The hardened hands of honorable toil!
How oft thy simple song had power to melt
The hearts of the r... | From shore to shore since his new race began,
In humble cot and "histie stibble field"
Who doth "preserve the dignity of man"?
With reverent hands I lay aside the tome,
And to my longing heart content returns,
And in the stranger's house I am at home,
For thou dost make us brothers, Robert Burns.
And thou, old Book, go... |
Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson | From The Cantata For N. F. S. Grundtvig (1872) | His day was the greatest the Northland has seen,
It one was with the midnight-sun's wonders serene:
The light wherein he sat was the light of God's true peace,
And that has never morning, nor night when it must cease.
In light of God's peace shone the history he gave,
The spirit's course on earth that shall conquer the... | In light of God's peace he beheld with watchful eye
The people at their work and the spirit's strivings high.
In light of God's pure peace he would have all learning glow,
And where his word is honored the "Folk-High-Schools" must grow.
In light of God's peace stood 'mid sorrow and care
For Denmark's folk his comfort, ... |
Ella Wheeler Wilcox | Friendship After Love. | After the fierce midsummer all ablaze
Has burned itself to ashes, and expires
In the intensity of its own fires,
There come the mellow, mild, St. Martin days, | Crowned with the calm of peace, but sad with haze.
So after Love has led us, till he tires
Of his own throes and torments and desires,
Comes large-eyed friendship: with a restful gaze
He beckons us to follow, and across
Cool, verdant vales we wander free from care.
Is it a touch of frost lies in the air?
Why are we hau... |
John Greenleaf Whittier | The Crisis | Across the Stony Mountains, o'er the desert's drouth and sand,
The circles of our empire touch the western ocean's strand;
From slumberous Timpanogos, to Gila, wild and free,
Flowing down from Nuevo-Leon to California's sea;
And from the mountains of the east, to Santa Rosa's shore,
The eagles of Mexitli shall beat the... | Great spaces yet untravelled, great lakes whose mystic shores
The Saxon rifle never heard, nor dip of Saxon oars;
Great herds that wander all unwatched, wild steeds that none have tamed,
Strange fish in unknown streams, and birds the Saxon never named;
Deep mines, dark mountain crucibles, where Nature's chemic powers
W... |
William Lisle Bowles | My Father's Grave. (From The Villager's Verse-Book.) | My father's grave, I heard her say,
And marked a stealing tear;
Oh, no! I would not go away,
My father's grave is here!
A thousand thronging sympathies | The lonely spot endear,
And every eve remembrance sighs,
My father's grave is here!
Some sudden tears unbidden start,
As spring's gay birds I hear,
For all things whisper to my heart,
My father's grave is here!
Young hope may blend each colour gay,
And fairer views appear;
But, no! I will not go away,
My father's grave... |
William Morris | The Orchard. | Midst bitten mead and acre shorn,
The world without is waste and worn, | But here within our orchard-close,
The guerdon of its labour shows.
O valiant Earth, O happy year
That mocks the threat of winter near,
And hangs aloft from tree to tree
The banners of the Spring to be. |
Algernon Charles Swinburne | The Litany of Nations | CHORUS
If with voice of words or prayers thy sons may reach thee,
We thy latter sons, the men thine after-birth,
We the children of thy grey-grown age, O Earth,
O our mother everlasting, we beseech thee,
By the sealed and secret ages of thy life;
By the darkness wherein grew thy sacred forces;
By the songs of stars thy... | By that bond 'twixt thee and me whereat affrighted
Thy tyrants fear us;
By that hope and this remembrance reunited;
(Cho.)
O mother, hear us.
PAIN
I am she that set my seal upon the nameless
West worlds of seas;
And my sons as brides took unto them the tameless
Hesperides.
Till my sins and sons through sinless lands di... |
Christina Georgina Rossetti | A Wintry Sonnet. | A robin said: The Spring will never come,
And I shall never care to build again.
A Rosebush said: These frosts are wearisome,
My sap will never stir for sun or rain. | The half Moon said: These nights are fogged and slow,
I neither care to wax nor care to wane.
The Ocean said: I thirst from long ago,
Because earth's rivers cannot fill the main.
When springtime came, red Robin built a nest,
And trilled a lover's song in sheer delight.
Gray hoarfrost vanished, and the Rose with might
C... |
Walter De La Mare | The Enchanted Hill | From height of noon, remote and still,
The sun shines on the empty hill.
No mist, no wind, above, below;
No living thing strays to and fro.
No bird replies to bird on high,
Cleaving the skies with echoing cry.
Like dreaming water, green and wan,
Glassing the snow of mantling swan,
Like a clear jewel encharactered
With ... | Then course pale phantoms, fleet-foot deer
Lap of its waters icy-clear;
Mounts the large moon, and pours her beams
On bright-fish-flashing, singing streams;
Voices re-echo; coursing by,
Horsemen, like clouds, wheel silently.
Glide then from out their pitch-black lair
Beneath the dark's ensilvered arch,
Witches becowled... |
Jonathan Swift | Verses Occasioned By Whitshed's [1] Motto On His Coach. | Libertas et natale solum: [2]
Fine words! I wonder where you stole 'em.
Could nothing but thy chief reproach
Serve for a motto on thy coach?
But let me now the words translate:
Natale solum, my estate;
My dear estate, how well I love it,
My tenants, if you doubt, will prove it, | They swear I am so kind and good,
I hug them till I squeeze their blood.
Libertas bears a large import:
First, how to swagger in a court;
And, secondly, to show my fury
Against an uncomplying jury;
And, thirdly, 'tis a new invention,
To favour Wood, and keep my pension;
And, fourthly, 'tis to play an odd trick,
Get the... |
Jonathan Swift | A Love Poem From A Physician To His Mistress | WRITTEN AT LONDON
By poets we are well assured
That love, alas! can ne'er be cured;
A complicated heap of ills,
Despising boluses and pills.
Ah! Chloe, this I find is true,
Since first I gave my heart to you.
Now, by your cruelty hard bound,
I strain my guts, my colon wound.
Now jealousy my grumbling tripes
Assaults wi... | When pity in those eyes I view,
My bowels wambling make me spew.
When I an amorous kiss design'd,
I belch'd a hurricane of wind.
Once you a gentle sigh let fall;
Remember how I suck'd it all;
What colic pangs from thence I felt,
Had you but known, your heart would melt,
Like ruffling winds in cavern pent,
Till Nature p... |
Ella Wheeler Wilcox | Three Souls | Three Souls there were that reached the Heavenly Gate,
And gained permission of the Guard to wait.
Barred from the bliss of Paradise by sin,
They did not ask or hope to enter in.
'We loved one woman (thus their story ran);
We lost her, for she chose another man.
So great our love, it brought us to this door;
We only as... | And, having seen her, we must journey back
The path we came - a hard and dangerous track.'
'Wait, then,' the Angel said, 'beside me here,
But do not strive within God's Gate to peer
Nor converse hold with Spirits clothed in light
Who pass this way; thou hast not earned the right.'
They waited year on year. Then, lik... |
Christina Georgina Rossetti | Luscious And Sorrowful. | Beautiful, tender, wasting away for sorrow;
Thus to-day; and how shall it be with thee to-morrow? | Beautiful, tender - what else?
A hope tells.
Beautiful, tender, keeping the jubilee
In the land of home together, past death and sea;
No more change or death, no more
Salt sea-shore. |
Thomas Hardy | Timing Her | Lalage's coming:
Where is she now, O?
Turning to bow, O,
And smile, is she,
Just at parting,
Parting, parting,
As she is starting
To come to me?
Where is she now, O,
Now, and now, O,
Shadowing a bough, O,
Of hedge or tree
As she is rushing,
Rushing, rushing,
Gossamers brushing
To come to me?
Lalage's coming;
Where is s... | Near is she now, O,
Now, and now, O;
Milk the rich cow, O,
Forward the tea;
Shake the down bed for her,
Linen sheets spread for her,
Drape round the head for her
Coming to me.
Lalage's coming,
She's nearer now, O,
End anyhow, O,
To-day's husbandry!
Would a gilt chair were mine,
Slippers of vair were mine,
Brushes for h... |
William F. Kirk | It's Up To You | Ay s'pose yu tenk life ban hard game.
Ay guess yu lak to qvit, perhaps.
Ay hear yu say, "It ban a shame
To see so many lucky chaps."
Yu say, "Dese guys ban mostly yaps:
Ay vish ay had some money, tu,
And not get all dese gude hard raps."
Val, Maester, it ban op to yu. | Sometimes ay s'pose yu vork long hours,
And ant get wery fancy pay;
Den yu can't buying stacks of flowers
And feed yure girl in gude caf',
And drenk yin rickies and frapp'.
Oh, yes! dis mak yu purty blue.
Yu lak to have more fun, yu say?
Val, Maester, it ban op to yu.
Dis vorld ant got much room to spare
For men vich m... |
Jean de La Fontaine | The Sculptor And The Statue Of Jupiter (Prose Fable) | Once a sculptor who saw for sale a block of marble was so struck with its beauty that he could not resist the temptation to buy it. When it was in his studio he thought to himself, "Now what shall my chisel make of it? Shall it be a god, a table, or a basin? It shall be a god. And I, myself, shall ordain that the god s... | The artist set to work and expressed so powerfully the attributes of the god that those who saw it averred that it only lacked speech to be Jupiter himself. It is said that the sculptor had scarcely completed the statue when he became so overawed as to fear and tremble before the work of his own hands.
The poet of old,... |
Robert Fuller Murray | Golden Dream | Golden dream of summer morn,
By a well-remembered stream
In the land where I was born, | Golden dream!
Ripples, by the glancing beam
Lightly kissed in playful scorn,
Meadows moist with sunlit steam.
When I lift my eyelids worn
Like a fair mirage you seem,
In the winter dawn forlorn,
Golden dream! |
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | Woods In Winter. | When winter winds are piercing chill,
And through the hawthorn blows the gale,
With solemn feet I tread the hill,
That overbrows the lonely vale.
O'er the bare upland, and away
Through the long reach of desert woods,
The embracing sunbeams chastely play,
And gladden these deep solitudes.
Where, twisted round the barren... | The summer vine in beauty clung,
And summer winds the stillness broke,
The crystal icicle is hung.
Where, from their frozen urns, mute springs
Pour out the river's gradual tide,
Shrilly the skater's iron rings,
And voices fill the woodland side.
Alas! how changed from the fair scene,
When birds sang out their mellow la... |
Emily Bronte | A Little Budding Rose | It was a little budding rose,
Round like a fairy globe,
And shyly did its leaves unclose
Hid in their mossy robe,
But sweet was the slight and spicy smell
It breathed from its heart invisible. | The rose is blasted, withered, blighted,
Its root has felt a worm,
And like a heart beloved and slighted,
Failed, faded, shrunk its form.
Bud of beauty, bonnie flower,
I stole thee from thy natal bower.
I was the worm that withered thee,
Thy tears of dew all fell for me;
Leaf and stalk and rose are gone,
Exile earth th... |
Arthur Hugh Clough | Duty | Duty that's to say, complying,
With whate'er's expected here;
On your unknown cousin's dying,
Straight be ready with the tear;
Upon etiquette relying,
Unto usage nought denying,
Lend your waist to be embraced,
Blush not even, never fear;
Claims of kith and kin connection,
Claims of manners honour still,
Ready money of ... | Go to church the world require you,
To balls the world require you too,
And marry papa and mamma desire you,
And your sisters and schoolfellows do.
Duty 'tis to take on trust
What things are good, and right, and just;
And whether indeed they be or be not,
Try not, test not, feel not, see not:
'Tis walk and dance, sit d... |
Walter Crane | Baa! Baa! Black Sheep | "Baa! Baa! Black sheep, have you any wool?" | "Yes, marry, have I, three bags full;
One for my master, and one for my dame,
But none for the little boy that lives down the lane!" |
Thomas Hardy | I Was Not He (Song) | I was not he the man
Who used to pilgrim to your gate,
At whose smart step you grew elate,
And rosed, as maidens can,
For a brief span. | It was not I who sang
Beside the keys you touched so true
With note-bent eyes, as if with you
It counted not whence sprang
The voice that rang . . .
Yet though my destiny
It was to miss your early sweet,
You still, when turned to you my feet,
Had sweet enough to be
A prize for me! |
William Wordsworth | Memorials Of A Tour On The Continent, 1820 - XII. - The Fall Of The Aar - Handec | From the fierce aspect of this River, throwing
His giant body o'er the steep rock's brink,
Back in astonishment and fear we shrink:
But, gradually a calmer look bestowing, | Flowers we espy beside the torrent growing;
Flowers that peep forth from many a cleft and chink,
And, from the whirlwind of his anger, drink
Hues ever fresh, in rocky fortress blowing:
They suck from breath that, threatening to destroy,
Is more benignant than the dewy eve
Beauty, and life, and motions as of joy:
Nor do... |
Percy Bysshe Shelley | The Revolt Of Islam. - Canto 1. | 1.
When the last hope of trampled France had failed
Like a brief dream of unremaining glory,
From visions of despair I rose, and scaled
The peak of an aerial promontory,
Whose caverned base with the vexed surge was hoary;
And saw the golden dawn break forth, and waken
Each cloud, and every wave: - but transitory
The ca... | 21.
Then she arose, and smiled on me with eyes
Serene yet sorrowing, like that planet fair,
While yet the daylight lingereth in the skies
Which cleaves with arrowy beams the dark-red air,
And said: 'To grieve is wise, but the despair
Was weak and vain which led thee here from sleep:
This shalt thou know, and more, if t... |
Walt Whitman | How Solemn As One By One | How solemn, as one by one,
As the ranks returning, all worn and sweaty--as the men file by where I stand;
As the faces, the masks appear--as I glance at the faces, studying the masks; | (As I glance upward out of this page, studying you, dear friend, whoever you are;)
How solemn the thought of my whispering soul, to each in the ranks, and to you;
I see behind each mask, that wonder, a kindred soul;
O the bullet could never kill what you really are, dear friend,
Nor the bayonet stab what you really are... |
Jean de La Fontaine | The Lion And The Hunter. | [1]
A braggart, lover of the chase,
Had lost a dog of valued race,
And thought him in a lion's maw.
He ask'd a shepherd whom he saw,
'Pray show me, man, the robber's place, | And I'll have justice in the case.'
''Tis on this mountain side,'
The shepherd man replied.
'The tribute of a sheep I pay,
Each month, and where I please I stray.'
Out leap'd the lion as he spake,
And came that way, with agile feet.
The braggart, prompt his flight to take,
Cried, 'Jove, O grant a safe retreat!'
A dange... |
Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) | Sestina I. | A qualunque animale alberga in terra.
NIGHT BRINGS HIM NO REST. HE IS THE PREY OF DESPAIR.
To every animal that dwells on earth,
Except to those which have in hate the sun,
Their time of labour is while lasts the day;
But when high heaven relumes its thousand stars,
This seeks his hut, and that its native wood,
Each fi... | Or downwards in love's labyrinthine wood,
Leaving my fleshly frame in mouldering earth,
Could I but pity find in her, one day
Would many years redeem, and to the dawn
With bliss enrich me from the setting sun!
Oh! might I be with her where sinks the sun,
No other eyes upon us but the stars,
Alone, one sweet night, ende... |
Walter Scott (Sir) | St. Swithin's Chair | On Hallow-Mass Eve, ere yon boune ye to rest,
Ever beware that your couch be bless'd;
Sign it with cross, and sain it with bead,
Sing the Ave, and say the Creed.
For on Hollow-Mass Eve the Night-Hag will ride,
And all her nine-fold sweeping on by her side.
Whether the wind sing lowly or loud,
Sailing through moonshine ... | Her cheek was pale, but resolved and high
Was the word of her lip and the glance of her eye.
She mutter'd the spell of Swithin bold,
When his naked foot traced the midnight wold,
When he stopp'd the Hag as she rode the night,
And bade her descend, and her promise plight.
He that dare sit on St. Swithin's Chair,
When th... |
Edward Dyson | The Moralist | Three other soldier blokes 'n' me packed 'ome from foreign lands;
Bit into each the God of Battles' everlastin' brands.
They limped in time, 'n' coughed in tune, 'n' one was short an ear,
'N' one was short a tier of ribs 'n' all was short of beer.
I speaks up like a temp'rance gent,
But ever since the sky was bent
The ... | In this ole Bill-o nestled 'neath a blanket, on his face
A someone's darlin' sorter look, a touch iv boy'ood's grace.
The gentle ladies stopped to 'ear,
'N' dropped a symperthetic tear,
A dollar or a deener for the pore haff1ict dear.
The others trucked the wounded to a hentrance up a lane.
I sez: 'Sich conduck's shame... |
Theodore Harding Rand | To Emeline. | I would enshrine in silvern song
The charm that bore our souls along,
As in the sun-flushed days of summer
We felt the pulsings of nature's throng;
When flecks of foam of flying spray
Smote white the red sun's torrid ray,
Or wimpling fogs toyed with the mountain,
A'rial spirits of dew at play;
When hovering stars, pois... | Our spirits knew keen fellowship
Of light and shadow, heart and lip;
The veil of M'y' grew transparent,
And hidden things came within our grip.
And then we sang: "In Arcady
All hearts are born, thus happy-free,
Till film of sin shuts out the Vision
That is, and was, and that is to be."
Thus wrought the Seen-Unseen the ... |
Robert Herrick | Sufferings. | We merit all we suffer, and by far | More stripes than God lays on the sufferer. |
Francis William Lauderdale Adams | An "Assassin." | . . . They caught them at the bend. He and his son
Sat in the car, revolvers in their laps.
From either side the stone-walled wintry road
There flashed thin fire-streaks in the rainy dusk.
The father swayed and fell, shot through the chest.
The son was up, but one more fire-streak leaped
Close from the pitch-black of a... | Flat on the stony road, a sweltering corse.
Then they came out, the men who did this thing,
And looked upon their hatred's retribution,
While heedlessly the rattling car fled on.
Grey-haired old wolf, your letch for peasants' blood,
For peasants' sweat turned gold and silver and bronze,
Is done, is done, for ever and e... |
John Milton Hay | Centennial. | A hundred times the bells of Brown
Have rung to sleep the idle summers,
And still to-day clangs clamouring down
A greeting to the welcome comers.
And far, like waves of morning, pours
Her call, in airy ripples breaking,
And wanders to the farthest shores,
Her children's drowsy hearts awaking.
The wild vibration floats ... | Her heavenly forehead bears no line
Of Time's iconolastic fingers,
But o'er her form the grace divine
Of deathless youth and wisdom lingers.
We fade and pass, grow faint and old,
Till youth and joy and hope are banished,
And still her beauty seems to fold
The sum of all the glory vanished.
As while Tithonus faltered on... |
Henry Lawson | Ben Boyd's Tower | Ben Boyd's Tower is watching,
Watching o'er the sea;
Ben Boyd's Tower is waiting
For her and me.
We do not know the day,
We do not know the hour,
But we know that we shall meet
By Ben Boyd's Tower.
Moonlight peoples Boyd Tower,
Mystic are its walls;
Lightly dance the lovers
In its haunted halls.
Ben Boyd's Tower is wat... | Watching o'er the foam;
Ben Boyd's Tower is waiting
Till the 'Wanderer' comes home.
O! he lay above us,
High above the surf,
Finger-nails and toe-caps
Digging in the turf.
We do not know the day,
We do not know the hour,
But Two and Two shall meet again
By Ben Boyd's Tower.
There's an ancient dame in Eden,
Basket on he... |
William Cowper | The Poet, The Oyster, And Sensitive Plant. | An Oyster, cast upon the shore,
Was heard, though never heard before,
Complaining in a speech well worded,
And worthy thus to be recorded:'
Ah, hapless wretch! condemn'd to dwell
For ever in my native shell;
Ordain'd to move when others please,
Not for my own content or ease;
But toss'd and buffeted about,
Now in the w... | No matter when'a poet's muse is
To make them grow just where she chooses):'
You shapeless nothing in a dish,
You that are but almost a fish,
I scorn your coarse insinuation,
And have most plentiful occasion
To wish myself the rock I view,
Or such another dolt as you:
For many a grave and learned clerk
And many a gay un... |
Ella Wheeler Wilcox | God's Answer | Once in a time of trouble and of care
I dreamed I talked with God about my pain;
With sleepland courage, daring to complain
Of what I deemed ungracious and unfair. | 'Lord, I have grovelled on my knees in prayer
Hour after hour,' I cried; 'yet all in vain;
No hand leads up to heights I would attain,
No path is shown me out of my despair.'
Then answered God: 'Three things I gave to thee -
Clear brain, brave will, and strength of mind and heart,
All implements divine, to shape th... |
Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson | Marit's Song (From A Happy Boy) | "Dance!" called the fiddle,
Its strings loudly giggled,
The bailiff's man wriggled
Ahead for a spree.
"Hold!" shouted Ola
And tripped him to tumbling,
The bailiff's man humbling,
To maidens' great glee. | "Hop!" said then Erik,
His foot struck the ceiling,
The beams rang their pealing,
The walls gave a shriek.
"Stop!" said now Elling,
And seizing him collared,
He held him and hollered:
"You still are too weak!"
"Hei!" said then Rasmus,
Fair Randi embracing:
"Be quick now in placing
The kiss that you know!"
"Nay!" answer... |
Robert Burns | The Jolly Beggars. - A Cantata. | Recitativo.
When lyart leaves bestrow the yird,
Or wavering like the bauckie-bird,
Bedim cauld Boreas' blast;
When hailstanes drive wi' bitter skyte
And infant frosts begin to bite,
In hoary cranreuch drest;
Ae night at e'en a merry core
O' randie, gangrel bodies,
In Poosie-Nansie's held the splore,
To drink their orra... | But I am a fool by profession.
My grannie she bought me a beuk,
And I held awa to the school;
I fear I my talent misteuk,
But what will ye hae of a fool?
For drink I would venture my neck,
A hizzie's the half o' my craft,
But what could ye other expect,
Of ane that's avowedly daft?
I ance was ty'd up like a stirk,
For ... |
Jean de La Fontaine | The Old Man And The Ass. | [1]
An old man, riding on his ass,
Had found a spot of thrifty grass,
And there turn'd loose his weary beast.
Old Grizzle, pleased with such a feast,
Flung up his heels, and caper'd round, | Then roll'd and rubb'd upon the ground,
And frisk'd and browsed and bray'd,
And many a clean spot made.
Arm'd men came on them as he fed:
'Let's fly,' in haste the old man said.
'And wherefore so?' the ass replied;
'With heavier burdens will they ride?'
'No,' said the man, already started.
'Then,' cried the ass, as he ... |
Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) | Sonnet XCVIII. | Quel vago impallidir che 'l dolce riso.
LEAVE-TAKING.
That witching paleness, which with cloud of love
Veil'd her sweet smile, majestically bright,
So thrill'd my heart, that from the bosom's night
Midway to meet it on her face it strove.
Then learnt I how, 'mid realms of joy above,
The blest behold the blest: in such ... | Each angel grace, each lowly courtesy,
E'er traced in dame by Love's soft power inspired,
Would seem but foils to those which prompt my lay:
Upon the ground was cast her gentle eye,
And still methought, though silent, she inquired,
"What bears my faithful friend so soon, so far away?"
WRANGHAM.
There was a touching pal... |
Paul Laurence Dunbar | Opportunity | Granny's gone a-visitin',
Seen huh git huh shawl
W'en I was a-hidin' down
Hime de gyahden wall.
Seen huh put her bonnet on,
Seen huh tie de strings,
An' I'se gone to dreamin' now
'Bout dem cakes an' t'ings.
On de she'f behime de do'--
Mussy, what a feas'!
Soon ez she gits out o' sight,
I kin eat in peace.
I bin watchin... | Des fu' dis hyeah chance.
Mussy, w'en I gits in daih,
I'll des sholy dance.
Lemon pie an' gingah-cake,
Let me set an' t'ink--
Vinegah an' sugah, too,
Dat'll mek a drink;
Ef dey's one t'ing dat I loves
Mos' pu'ticlahly,
It is eatin' sweet t'ings an'
A-drinkin' Sangaree.
Lawdy, won' po' granny raih
W'en she see de she'f;... |
Richard Le Gallienne | Young Love V - The Day Of The Two Daffodils | 'The daffodils are fine this year,' I said;
'O yes, but see my crocuses,' said she.
And so we entered in and sat at talk
Within a little parlour bowered about
With garden-noises, filled with garden scent,
As some sweet sea-shell rings with pearly chimes
And sighs out fragrance of its mother's breast.
We sat at talk, an... | And as such two will ofttimes pause in speech,
Gaze at high heaven and draw deep to their hearts
The infinite azure, then meet eyes again
And flash it to each other; without words
First, and then with voice trembling as trumpets
Tremble with fierce breath, voice cadenced too
As deep as the deep sea, Aeolian voice,
Voic... |
Clark Ashton Smith | Nirvana | Poised as a god whose lone, detach'd post,
An eyrie, pends between the boundary-marks
Of finite years, and those unvaried darks
That veil Eternity, I saw the host | Of worlds and suns, swept from the furthermost
Of night - confusion as of dust with sparks -
Whirl tow'rd the opposing brink; as one who harks
Some warning trumpet, Time, a withered ghost,
Fled with them; disunited orbs that late
Were atoms of the universal frame,
They passed to some eternal fragment-heap.
And, lo, the... |
Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) | Sonnet CXXVI. | In qual parte del cielo, in quale idea.
HE EXTOLS THE BEAUTY AND VIRTUE OF LAURA.
Say from what part of heaven 'twas Nature drew,
From what idea, that so perfect mould
To form such features, bidding us behold,
In charms below, what she above could do?
What fountain-nymph, what dryad-maid e'er threw
Upon the wind such t... | He for celestial charms may look in vain,
Who has not seen my fair one's radiant eyes,
And felt their glances pleasingly beguile.
How Love can heal his wounds, then wound again,
He only knows, who knows how sweet her sighs,
How sweet her converse, and how sweet her smile.
NOTT.
In what celestial sphere--what realm of t... |
Pat O'Cotter | Dedicated To Alaska | The home of the tin can and dog,
A waste of snow, ice, and moss.
The graveyard of ambitions,
The by-word for hell, | The home of the famed double cross.
Men come here for gold,
Ambitious for wealth
They stick--for they can't get away,
They dig, drink, and die,
And then go to hell,
To pay for their last sucker play--
ALASKA |
Henry Lawson | The Ballad Of The Rousabout | A Rouseabout of rouseabouts, from any land, or none,
I bear a nick-name of the bush, and I'm, a woman's son;
I came from where I camp'd last night, and, at the day-dawn glow,
I rub the darkness from my eyes, roll up my swag, and go.
Some take the track for bitter pride, some for no pride at all,
(But, to us all the wor... | We judge not and we are not judged, 'tis our philosophy,
There's something wrong with every ship that sails upon the sea.
From shearing shed to shearing shed we tramp to make a cheque,
Jack Cornstalk and the ne'er-do-weel, the tar-boy and the wreck.
We learn the worth of man to man, and this we learn too well,
The shan... |
Thomas Moore | O'Donohue's Mistress. | Of all the fair months, that round the sun
In light-linked dance their circles run,
Sweet May, shine thou for me;
For still, when thy earliest beams arise,
That youth, who beneath the blue lake lies,
Sweet May, returns to me.
Of all the bright haunts, where daylight leaves
Its lingering smile on golden eyes,
Fair Lake,... | Thy Na'ads prepare his steed[1] for him
Who dwells, bright Lake, in thee.
Of all the proud steeds, that ever bore
Young plumed Chiefs on sea or shore,
White Steed, most joy to thee;
Who still, with the first young glance of spring,
From under that glorious lake dost bring
My love, my chief, to me.
While, white as the s... |
Edna St. Vincent Millay | Ode To Silence | Aye, but she?
Your other sister and my other soul
Grave Silence, lovelier
Than the three loveliest maidens, what of her?
Clio, not you,
Not you, Calliope,
Nor all your wanton line,
Not Beauty's perfect self shall comfort me
For Silence once departed,
For her the cool-tongued, her the tranquil-hearted,
Whom evermore I f... | So stout, what so redoubtable, in Death
What fury, what considerable rage, if only she,
Upon whose icy breast,
Unquestioned, uncaressed,
One time I lay,
And whom always I lack,
Even to this day,
Being by no means from that frigid bosom weaned away,
If only she therewith be given me back?"
I sought her down that dolorou... |
Arthur Macy | Wind And Rain | The rain came down on Boston Town,
And the people said, "Oh, dear!
It's early yet for our annual wet, -
'Twas dry this time last year."
In heavy suits and rubber boots
They went to the weather man,
And said, "Dear friend, do you intend
To change your present plan?"
In tones of scorn, he said, "Begone! | I've ordered a week of rain.
Away! disperse! or I'll do worse,
And order a hurricane!"
They sneered, "Oh, oh!" and they laughed, "Ho, ho!"
And they said, "You surely jest.
Your threats are vain, for a hurricane
Is the thing that we like best.
"Our throats are tinned, and a sharp east wind
We really couldn't do without;... |
Ella Wheeler Wilcox | Song Of The Road | I am a Road; a good road, fair and smooth and broad;
And I link with my beautiful tether
Town and Country together,
Like a ribbon rolled on the earth, from the reel of God.
Oh, great the life of a Road!
I am a Road; a long road, leading on and on;
And I cry to the world to follow,
Past meadow and hill and hollow,
Throu... | I am a Road; a kind road, shaped by strong hands.
I make strange cities neighbours;
The poor grow rich with my labours,
And beauty and comfort follow me through the lands.
Oh, glad the life of a Road!
I am a Road; a wise road, knowing all men's ways;
And I know how each heart reaches
For the things dear Nature teaches;... |
Robert Browning | Sordello: Book The Fourth | Meantime Ferrara lay in rueful case;
The lady-city, for whose sole embrace
Her pair of suitors struggled, felt their arms
A brawny mischief to the fragile charms
They tugged for one discovering that to twist
Her tresses twice or thrice about his wrist
Secured a point of vantage one, how best
He 'd parry that by plantin... | Was clasped with; but an archer knew the coat
Its blue cross and eight lilies, bade beware
One dogging him in concert with the pair
Though thrumming on the sleeve that hid his knife.
Night set in early, autumn dews were rife,
They kindled great fires while the Leaguers' mass
Began at every carroch: he must pass
Between... |
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni | The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - To Death. | Morte, stipendio della colpa.
O Death, the wage of our first father's blame,
Daughter of envy and nonentity,
Serf of the serpent, and his harlotry,
Thou beast most arrogant and void of shame! | Thy last great conquest dost thou dare proclaim,
Crying that all things are subdued to thee,
Against the Almighty raised almightily?--
The proofs that prop thy pride of state are lame.
Not to serve thee, but to make thee serve Him,
He stoops to Hell. The choice of arms was thine;
Yet art thou scoffed at by the crucifie... |
Eugene Field | Old Spanish Song | I'm thinking of the wooing
That won my maiden heart
When he--he came pursuing
A love unused to art.
Into the drowsy river
The moon transported flung
Her soul that seemed to quiver
With the songs my lover sung.
And the stars in rapture twinkled
On the slumbrous world below--
You see that, old and wrinkled,
I'm not forge... | He still should be repeating
The vows he uttered then--
Alas! the years, though fleeting,
Are truer yet than men!
The summer moonlight glistens
In the favorite trysting spot
Where the river ever listens
For a song it heareth not.
And I, whose head is sprinkled
With time's benumbing snow,
I languish, old and wrinkled,
B... |
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni | The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - To Jesus Christ. | I tuo' seguaci.
Thy followers to-day are less like Thee,
The crucified, than those who made Thee die,
Good Jesus, wandering all ways awry
From rules prescribed in Thy wise charity. | The saints now most esteemed love lying lips,
Lust, strife, injustice; sweet to them the cry
Drawn forth by monstrous pangs from men that die:
So many plagues hath not the Apocalypse
As these wherewith they smite Thy friends ignored--
Even as I am; search my heart, and know;
My life, my sufferings bear Thy stamp and si... |
Algernon Charles Swinburne | Not a Child | I.
'Not a child: I call myself a boy,'
Says my king, with accent stern yet mild,
Now nine years have brought him change of joy;
'Not a child.'
How could reason be so far beguiled,
Err so far from sense's safe employ,
Stray so wide of truth, or run so wild?
Seeing his face bent over book or toy,
Child I called him, smil... | II.
Not a child? alack the year!
What should ail an undefiled
Heart, that he would fain appear
Not a child?
Men, with years and memories piled
Each on other, far and near,
Fain again would so be styled:
Fain would cast off hope and fear,
Rest, forget, be reconciled:
Why would you so fain be, dear,
Not a child?
III.
Chi... |
Sara Teasdale | The Net | I made you many and many a song,
Yet never one told all you are, | It was as though a net of words
Were flung to catch a star;
It was as though I curved my hand
And dipped sea-water eagerly,
Only to find it lost the blue
Dark splendor of the sea. |
Thomas Hardy | An Old Likeness | Recalling R. T.
Who would have thought
That, not having missed her
Talks, tears, laughter
In absence, or sought
To recall for so long
Her gamut of song;
Or ever to waft her
Signal of aught
That she, fancy-fanned,
Would well understand,
I should have kissed her | Picture when scanned
Yawning years after!
Yet, seeing her poor
Dim-outlined form
Chancewise at night-time,
Some old allure
Came on me, warm,
Fresh, pleadful, pure,
As in that bright time
At a far season
Of love and unreason,
And took me by storm
Here in this blight-time!
And thus it arose
That, yawning years after
Our ... |
Thomas Hardy | The Temporary The All | Change and chancefulness in my flowering youthtime,
Set me sun by sun near to one unchosen;
Wrought us fellow-like, and despite divergence,
Friends interlinked us.
"Cherish him can I while the true one forthcome -
Come the rich fulfiller of my prevision;
Life is roomy yet, and the odds unbounded."
So self-communed I. | Thwart my wistful way did a damsel saunter,
Fair, the while unformed to be all-eclipsing;
"Maiden meet," held I, "till arise my forefelt
Wonder of women."
Long a visioned hermitage deep desiring,
Tenements uncouth I was fain to house in;
"Let such lodging be for a breath-while," thought I,
"Soon a more seemly.
"Then, h... |
Walt Whitman | Thoughts | I
Of ownership, As if one fit to own things could not at pleasure enter upon all, and incorporate them into himself or herself.
II | Of waters, forests, hills;
Of the earth at large, whispering through medium of me;
Of vista, Suppose some sight in arriere, through the formative chaos, presuming the growth, fulness, life, now attain'd on the journey;
(But I see the road continued, and the journey ever continued;)
Of what was once lacking on earth,... |
Ella Wheeler Wilcox | A Suggestion, To C. A. D. | Let the wild red-rose bloom. Though not to thee
So delicately perfect as the white
And unwed lily drooping in the light,
Though she has known the kisses of the bee
And tells her amorous tale to passers-by | In perfumed whispers and with untaught grace,
Still let the red-rose bloom in her own place;
She could not be the lily should she try.
Why to the wondrous nightingale cry hush
Or bid her cease her wild heart-breaking lay,
And tune her voice to imitate the way
The whip-poor-will makes music, or the thrush?
All airs of s... |
Fay Inchfawn | The Flight of the Fairies | There's a rustle in the woodlands, and a sighing in the breeze,
For the Little Folk are busy in the bushes and the trees;
They are packing up their treasures, every one with nimble hand,
Ready for the coming journey back to sunny Fairyland.
They have gathered up the jewels from their beds of mossy green, | With all the dewy diamonds that summer morns have seen;
The silver from the lichen and the powdered gold dust, too,
Where the buttercups have flourished and the dandelions grew.
They packed away the birdies' songs, then, lest we should be sad,
They left the Robin's carol out, to make the winter glad;
They packed the fr... |
Thomas William Hodgson Crosland | To The Tripper | My dear Sir, or Madam, -
When James Watt,
Or some such person,
Had the luck
To see a kettle boil,
He little dreamed
That he was discovering you,
Otherwise he would have let his kettle boil
For a million million years
Without saying anything about it.
However,
James Watt
Omitted to take cognisance of the ultimate troubl... | As the case may be.
A special tap of ale
And a special cut of 'am
Were put on for your delectation;
You sang a mixture of hymns
And music-hall songs
On your homeward journey,
And there was an end of the matter.
But nowadays there is no escape from you.
The trip that was over and done
In twenty-four hours at most
Has be... |
Charles Kingsley | Martin Lightfoot's Song [1] | Come hearken, hearken, gentles all,
Come hearken unto me,
And I'll sing you a song of a Wood-Lyon
Came swimming out over the sea.
He ranged west, he ranged east,
And far and wide ranged he;
He took his bite out of every beast
Lives under the greenwood tree.
Then by there came a silly old wolf,
'And I'll serve you,' quo... | Quoth the Lyon, 'My wits are sharp enough
So what wilt thou do for me?'
Then by there came a white, white dove,
Flew off Our Lady's knee;
Sang 'It's I will be your true, true love,
If you'll be true to me.'
'And what will you do, you bonny white dove?
And what will you do for me?'
'Oh, it's I'll bring you to Our Lady's... |
A. H. Laidlaw | Black Eyes. | The Blue Eye will do if the courting is through
And the way of the marriage is sunny,
And it helps in the fun till the sweet life is done
If the girl brings a mint of good money.
But when aft or before the good parson's front door,
With calm or a storm on the track;
For Love red, red hot, with the ducats or not,
There ... | The Hazel is true to you all the way through,
And it burns with a light warm and steady;
Only if it is Fred that she has in her head,
It is burning for no one but Freddie.
But the Black Eye will veer and stake kingdoms to spear
Whatever it likes on the track,
And as a love-lance to its lord in the dance
There is never ... |
Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) | Sonnet LXXVIII. | Poi che voi ed io pi' volte abbiam provato.
TO A FRIEND, COUNSELLING HIM TO ABANDON EARTHLY PLEASURES.
Still has it been our bitter lot to prove
How hope, or e'er it reach fruition, flies!
Up then to that high good, which never dies,
Lift we the heart--to heaven's pure bliss above.
On earth, as in a tempting mead, we r... | Oh! then, as thou wouldst wish ere life's last day
To taste the sweets of calm unbroken rest,
Tread firm the narrow, shun the beaten way--
Ah! to thy friend too well may be address'd:
"Thou show'st a path, thyself most apt to stray,
Which late thy truant feet, fond youth, have never press'd."
WRANGHAM.
Friend, as we bo... |
Alexander Pope | A Farewell To London | IN THE YEAR 1715.
1 Dear, damn'd, distracting town, farewell!
Thy fools no more I'll tease:
This year in peace, ye critics, dwell,
Ye harlots, sleep at ease!
2 Soft B----s and rough C----s, adieu!
Earl Warwick, make your moan,
The lively H----k and you
May knock up whores alone.
3 To drink and droll be Rowe allow'd
Til... | 5 Lintot, farewell! thy bard must go;
Farewell, unhappy Tonson!
Heaven gives thee for thy loss of Rowe,
Lean Philips and fat Johnson.
6 Why should I stay? Both parties rage;
My vixen mistress squalls;
The wits in envious feuds engage;
And Homer (damn him!) calls.
7 The love of arts lies cold and dead
In Halifax's urn;
... |
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